


in houses that are haunted, with the kids who lie awake

by ficforever



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Fluff and (clothing) porn, M/M, Tailoring, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 16:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20678609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficforever/pseuds/ficforever
Summary: "So you'll be spending the week in a rented tuxedo around a bunch of old money cocks," Margo says. She's abandoned the book for her phone, which would irritate Quentin more if she weren't clearly also following his panicked monologue well enough to sum it up in, like, one-tenth of the words."Yes. That. Exactly."She nods thoughtfully, still tapping at her screen. "That does sound like hell. Also like fantastic period pornography. You'd definitely end up forced to strip in front of a hot scornful valet, or something."





	in houses that are haunted, with the kids who lie awake

A world without Brakebills doesn't mean a world without magic, of course. The absence of real, official, Ivy League Magical Gatekeepers doesn't guarantee the absence of the power they exist to control. But in a world like that, without the slow accumulation of knowledge catalogued, documented, hidden and stolen and hidden again, magic goes unmastered, and is sparse, fitful. It hides behind coincidence, gets dismissed as imagination or resented as fraud. There are still children who grow up searching for it with the fervor of true believers, who never quite stop looking, but they rarely catch anything but glimpses.

Without places like Brakebills, people who might otherwise be extraordinary Magicians are, mostly, just people.

Maybe it's for the best. 

In a world without Brakebills, Quentin Coldwater is still smart, depressed, and uncannily good at cards. He knows there's no magical cure for what's wrong with him, even if he gets his hopes up now and then over a new medication, a really good workbook, or the desk of an author that changed his life. Some kids never stop looking.

Quentin's not swept away to another land, but he's fine, for a while, in this one. He graduates. He has a good week, and then a string of bad ones, and then one that’s Bad Enough for the hospital again; the same grim, tedious, _embarrassing_ shit. Dealing with the shit pushes his plans back a little, puts him out of sync with friends moving on to grad school and leaves him in the wary, hopeful company of his Dad for unnatural stretches of time. He doesn't kill himself. It's hard. Sometimes he can admit that it's the hardest thing he'll ever do. He agrees to an outpatient program for the first 6 weeks on his own, and it helps.

After the hospital Quentin steadily takes his meds, except when he forgets, and he fills out worksheets for his therapist even when they're stupid and pointless, because he's always liked the look of a completed page. He makes it into grad school only a semester late, keeps Fillory and Further in a discreet inner pocket of his messenger bag, and manages to slip the Earthsea books onto the optional reading list for the first class he’s going to TA. He rents a shitty apartment, and nods awkwardly but sympathetically in the lobby when other tenants complain about the shittiness. He lets his terrifyingly beautiful neighbor into the building when her key sticks, and is haunted briefly by Breakfast at Tiffany’s parallels, which stick in his head like a catchy pop song and make it hard to look her in the eye. He's relieved when they just end up neighborly, the kind of friends who watch for each other's mail and bond over their shared taste in trashy high-fantasy novels.

He struggles to adjust to grad school, drowning in the reading and the disappearance of a structured schedule, but his friends are there to drag him to the surface. Julia lures him off his couch and into the library to study, and later James lures him out of the library to poker games where they can fleece terrible future masters of business administration. He eats dinner at their less-shitty apartment, cuddles on their significantly cleaner couch, and takes on the second-hardest project of his life: slowly and determinedly falling out of love with them both.

He thinks it would be easier if James would stop suggesting threeways, or maybe if they did all break down and sleep together, but that's not a theory he ever expects to test. It's okay. Threeways in the trashy novels only ever end in pain.

"That's in _fiction_, Coldwater," his terrifying neighbor says, when he finds himself explaining this to her. Margo's sprawled on her stomach in a silk robe that wasn't made for sprawling, flipping through _The Ruins of Ambrai_ and hogging the warm patch of light that only his apartment gets, and only from nine to nine thirty on sunny mornings. "The world doesn't end in real life just because you sleep with your best friends. You just wake up and move on, hopefully with a good memory and probably wearing someone else's underwear."

Quentin pulls his legs up into his couch huddle, and tries to look like he's used to talking about this. "Well," he says, and then clears his throat. "I think we've, uh, had different sexual experiences." 

Margo gives him a long look, profoundly judgmental in a way he's still getting used to from her. Quentin scowls back. He's wearing his softest t-shirt, a button-down, and pants - and even socks, because Margo had yelled "I don't care if you're naked, pussy up and let me in," to God and everyone else on the third floor when she'd pounded on the door in search of sunlight, and Quentin _had_ been naked at that point but was also petty enough to fully dress before opening the door.

It's the first time he's been fully dressed in a few days, actually.

It's possible he's been tricked.

Margo snorts, dropping her eyes to the page. "You and I? Different sex lives? Insightful."

"And you're not going to like that book," he says, petulant but honest. Then amends, "well, you might like it, but it's an abandoned trilogy and getting left on the cliffhanger is just going to taint your whole experience."

"That...actually is pretty insightful," she says, closing the book and looking wistfully at the lute player on the cover, smirking and shirtless. "They probably kill the hot one off, anyway."

"Besides, they're getting married now," Quentin says. She makes a questioning face at him, gesturing to the shirtless guy. “No, not in the book. James and Julia." He digs in the milk-crate that serves as an end table to avoid looking at her for a minute, and emerges with a hair tie. He finishes: "are getting married, so the window for impulse sex is pretty much closed." And he's fine with that, whatever Margo's face is saying now. He's happy, even. Happy with and for them, this one thing he’s done right.

"Now there's just dealing with the wedding week," he sighs. Even thinking about this makes him want to hide under his bed, unlike the prospect of their actual marriage.

Margo hoists herself onto her elbows, staring at him. "The wedding _week_?" 

"Yeah, James' family is, uh. Rich? And it's going to be a destination wedding, probably at some historic site - which is great! Julia and I have been looking at a lot of castles, and there are so many themes they could go with depending on the choice - it's kind of like getting to be a dramaturge which I had always thought was a cool career-"

"Quentin."

"Right! Sorry, the thing is, it's a whole _week_. Of, like, really formal things? And most of their friends are used to it but I'm kind of the -" _charity case_, he bites down on, because if he starts saying it to Margo he'll dwell on it and eventually let it slip to Julia, and he's not doing that to her - "odd one out. Like, I don't have a week's worth of suit jackets and matching ties, or whatever. I don't even have a weeks worth of pants. Or conversation."

"Uh-huh. Are these two your best friends or not?"

"They are! James and Julia wouldn't care, but I can't hide behind them the whole week. I don't want them to have to worry about protecting me while they're getting married, for God's sake."

"So you'll be spending the week in a rented tuxedo around a bunch of old money cocks," Margo says. She's abandoned the book for her phone, which would irritate Quentin more if she weren't clearly also following his panicked monologue well enough to sum it up in, like, one-tenth of the words.

"Yes. That. Exactly."

She nods thoughtfully, still tapping at her screen. "That does sound like hell. Also like fantastic period pornography, though. You'd definitely end up forced to strip in front of a hot scornful valet, or something."

Quentin sighs. "Thanks for that detail," he says, sliding resignedly down the couch. 'Really. That's definitely not going to make my nightmares about this weirder, or anything."

"You pronounced 'hotter' wrong, kiddo. And you're welcome," Margo says, grinning shamelessly. "But you're going to be thanking me for more than that, in a minute."

Quentin lolls his head sideways to squint at her, suspicious. A Margo favor could be amazing, or it could be - his eyes widen as she twists up fluidly to point her phone at him. He sees the flash go off before he can react, and then she's - "Are you sending that to someone?" The squeak in his voice makes him wince, but _come on_. Quentin clears his throat. "Margo..."

She waves her hand at him and puts the phone to her ear. "What do you think? Raw clay, right? Yeah, a week. Full-on Merchant Ivory, your favorite. You want measurements?"

"Oh God," Quentin says, "is this about clothes? Margo!" Her wave gets vigorous enough to smack his knee, and he startles so hard that he falls off the couch. "Margo, I can't afford -" He grabs for the phone, but she holds him back with a hand on his chest and turns the screen toward him, like she's - oh. She's switched it to Facetime. Great. "What the fuck is going _on_," he hisses to her, and she smiles beatifically at him. There's a cough from the phone that might also be a laugh, and Quentin looks, finally, at the screen. He's never letting Margo sleep in his sun patch again.

A man he's seen before in Margo's photos leans forward into the frame, pulling a cigarette from his mouth and resting his elbows on his - yikes - widespread knees. Very widespread. Quentin tries to imagine being comfortable in pants that tight. That white. Either one.

"Quentin Coldwater?"

Distantly, Quentin hears himself say, "uh-huh," and then jerks his eyes upward, already blushing. Why is this guy's whole body in the frame, anyway?

"Hi," the guy says and he's not laughing, at least, but his eyes crinkle a little at the corners when they meet Quentin's. "I'm Eliot."

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from today's contender for 'most absurd song that makes you think about The Magicians,' which is Dar Williams' _Southern California Wants to be Western New York._


End file.
